This just in! Jodi Kennedy of Mount Pleasant Spine Center was recently named 2020 Best Chiropractor by Mount Pleasant Magazine. Nearly 50,000 votes were cast, and we’re incredibly humbled to receive this distinction. Knowing that our patients were the ones who voted us 2020 Best Chiropractor, makes it mean that much more.

To quote Mount Pleasant Magazine, “If you’re all bent out of shape from back pain, Dr. Jodi Kennedy of Mount Pleasant Spine Center can help you get straightened out and feeling better again. Dr. Kennedy receives high marks for her professional and precise chiropractic care and friendliness.”

Whether you’re seeing us for chiropractic care, medical acupuncture, massage therapy, or any of the other numerous services that we offer in office, you can rest assured that you will experience superior care in a safe, attentive environment. At the heart of Mount Pleasant, Spine Center is a dedication to you — our patient. That is why we continually strive to “continue a legacy of life-changing care.”

December Challenge. Let’s work on core-strengthening!

With the busy holiday season kicking up into full gear, this is a perfect time of year to reevaluate your fitness and exercise program. Not only does exercise help to mitigate the effects of all the delicious holiday treats but exercise also serves as an excellent stress reliever from all the holiday hustle and bustle. A great place to focus on is working towards strengthening your core. Not only will core strengthening result in the previously mentioned benefits but it is also a key component of overall spine health. Want to challenge your core while still being gentle on the rest of the body? Maybe it’s time to investigate low-impact workouts. Low impact doesn’t mean minimal results; it can help you strengthen, stabilize and tone your core muscles without putting too much pressure on your joints.

Below are some great ways to work on strengthening your core while still being gentle on your joints;

1. Planking exercises.

Long considered the gold standard for core strengthening, front and side planks are an excellent way to strengthen your core without putting any additional stress on your neck the way that crunches and sit-ups can. Hold your plank for 15 seconds and then rest for 2 seconds before planking again. This is an incredibly effective way to strengthen your core and you can easily do it even when traveling for the holidays.

2. Swimming.

Swimming is a great way to challenge your core while still minimizing the risk of injury. Buoyancy reduces stress on your joints and ligaments while movement within water helps create resistance. Water workouts and therapies are also a great way to get your heart rate going while ensuring that your joints stay protected.

3. Yoga.

A low-impact favorite spanning from beginners to professional athletes, yoga has a multitude of overall health benefits for practitioners. Yoga can burn calories and tone muscles with an emphasis on strengthening and stretching—perfect for core work. Keep in mind that yoga can come at a variety of levels, focuses, and intensities.

4. Pilates.

Great for beginners, a Pilates workout is a beautiful way to tone muscles, improve balance and flexibility, and stabilize and strengthen your core. It’s an excellent option for folks who have physical limitations as most moves can be modified to suit an individual’s needs.

5. Barre.

Known as a ballet-inspired workout, Barre is a low impact form of exercise that adopts different elements of dance, Pilates, and yoga.  Using isometric contractions, Barre classes can help improve strength, flexibility and stabilize and increase core strength. It also happens to be a personal favorite form of exercise of the Mount Pleasant Spine Center staff.

If you have any questions or need to make an appointment at our Mount Pleasant Chiropractic office, please call 843-416-8012.

Happy Thanksgiving from the team at Mount Pleasant Spine Center!  We will be closed Thursday November 28^th and Friday November 29^th to celebrate the holiday with our families. We will return for regular business hours Monday December 2^nd.

We are thankful for all of our great patients and we wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please call our office at 843-416-8012

With the recent daylight-saving time change, we have noticed that we have been having a lot of discussions with our patients regarding sleeping habits and the best ways to ensure a good night’s sleep and a happy and healthy spine when waking up in the morning.

Patients frequently ask the question “what is the best sleeping position to reduce neck and back pain?” This is a great question; however, it is equally important to discuss what is the worst sleeping position for spinal health, and the answer to that question is easy- sleeping on your stomach! Being a stomach sleeper is problematic for several reasons. First off, it forces your neck in one position – to the side – for long periods.  While your neck is turned to the right or left, several of the muscles (and joints) in your neck are working hard to keep your head in that position.  Other muscles are working hard to balance the positioning muscles.  Neck muscles that are tight for several hours can cause pain, inflammation, numbness, and tingle in the hands or headaches.  It is certainly no fun to wake up with any of these issues.

While sleeping on your stomach, it also causes your back to arch, putting pressure on the joints, discs, and nerves, which can cause muscle spasms or sciatica, resulting in increased back pain.

So again, that brings us to the question, “what is the best sleeping position to reduce neck and back pain?” The answer is to try to sleep on your back or side instead.  When sleeping on your back, lie flat with a pillow under your head and neck and a pillow under your knees.  Do not ever sleep with more than one pillow under your head- when discussing sleeping positions with our patients we usually find that patients are using more pillow than they need. Pillows are not one size fits all!  Your neck should not be pushed up so that your chin moves down toward your chest.  A pillow should support your neck according to its natural shaped curve, allowing your head to rest in a neutral position.

When you sleep on your side, support your head and neck with pillows so that your spine will remain in a straight or neutral line.  Your legs should be at a 35 to 45-degree angle and not drawn up in a crunched or fetal position.  You may feel more comfortable with a pillow between your knees to keep your pelvis from being tilted.

Changing sleeping habits can be difficult and take both time and commitment; however, the results are worth it!

As always, for any questions or to make an appointment for a chiropractic visit, massage therapy, or medical acupuncture please call our Mount Pleasant Chiropractic office at 843-416-8012.

Most of us can barely believe that it is that time of year again. Dressing up, school parties, costume parades and trick-or-treating—these are the reasons Halloween tops the list of many kids’ favorite days. While no one wants to ruin this spooky and sugary celebration, with all the health concerns surrounding sugar and the poor diet habits of millions of Americans, it is always good to find ways to cut back on excess while still having fun and enjoying the treats that come with the holiday.

Here are a few helpful tips for Halloween and the days before and after to help have a healthier Halloween.

1. Switch it up. Cut your contribution to the candy landslide (Americans spend a whopping $2 billion on candy in the days before Halloween!) by giving out an alternative. Think: boxes of raisins or pretzels, temporary tattoos, glow sticks, fake fangs, stickers, small boxes of crayons or neat pencils, packages of nuts, dime store toys, and other little treats are all fun options

2. Lay the groundwork early. Before the festivities begin, make family rules about the amount of candy everyone is allowed to eat on Halloween day and post-Halloween. Managing expectations can make it easier to monitor when everyone is caught up in the fun of the holiday.

3. Consider a treat swap and offer your child a trade for their candy. For example, give them a nickel or dime for each piece of candy they turn in—then allow them to spend it on a toy, book, game or app instead. Or you could let them pick out something they’d like (within reason, of course!), and you can swap with them on how many pieces of candy it will cost them.

4. Eat three healthy protein-based meals and some healthy snacks on the day of the festivities. With a full tummy, your child will be less apt to eat mounds of candy on the go and may even grab fewer treats from overly generous neighbors.

Go organic. If you do buy candy, try to stick with organic sweets made of real cane sugar. Find these at many natural foods stores.

With a little pre-planning, it is possible to curb a bit of the candy craze this Halloween. So get out there and have fun with all those little ghouls, ghosts and superheroes.

Today we thought we would share some interesting facts about pain and pain origination. Obviously here at Mount Pleasant Spine Center we are often dealing with pain and the multifaceted ways in which it originates so we thought it would be good to discuss some facts about pain in order to better understand the complicated nature of pain.

1. Pain is output from the brain.

Pain, at its essence, is a warning signal from the brain. While it used to be believed that pain originated within the tissues of our body, it is now understood that pain does not exist until the brain determines it does. The brain uses a virtual “road map” to direct an output of pain to tissues that it suspects may be in danger. This process acts as a means of communication between the brain and the tissues of the body, to serve as a defense against possible injury or disease. As the saying goes at the end of the day “the pain is in the brain.”

2. The degree of injury does not always equal the degree of pain.

Research has demonstrated that we all experience pain in individual ways. While some of us experience major injuries with little pain, others experience minor injuries with a lot of pain (think of a paper cut). The varying amount of pain that any one individual experiences is subjective and can vary greatly from person to person.

3. Despite what diagnostic imaging (MRIs, x-rays, CT scans) shows us, the finding(s) may not be the cause of your pain.

There is a multitude of research and literature that indicates that, although imaging is often quite helpful in helping to figure out a patient’s pain generator, what we find on diagnostic studies do not always match the degree of pain that a patient is experiencing.  A study performed on individuals 60 years or older who had no symptoms of low back pain found that 36% had a herniated disc, 21% had spinal stenosis, and more than 90% had a degenerated or bulging disc, upon diagnostic imaging.

4. Your social environment may influence your perception of pain.

Many patients state their pain increases when they are at work or in a stressful situation. Pain messages can be generated when an individual is in an environment or situation that the brain interprets as unsafe. It is a fundamental form of self-protection.

5. There is no way of knowing whether you have a high tolerance for pain or not. Science has yet to determine whether we all experience pain in the same way.

While some people may say they have a “high tolerance” for pain, there is no accurate way to measure or compare pain tolerance among individuals. While some tools exist to measure how much force you can resist before experiencing pain, it cannot yet be determined what your pain “feels like.”

For more information regarding pain and pain management, or to make an appointment, please call of Mount Pleasant office at 843-416-8012.

There is potential new legislation that has been recently introduced that would require Tricare to provide chiropractic services to its members and their families. As the January 15^th article posted on the NGAUS website notes “NGAUS is supporting bipartisan legislation aimed at expanding access to chiropractic health care for the National Guard, Reserves and military retirees.”  Leading the discussion are Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, who introduced the Chiropractic Health Parity for Military Beneficiaries Act last week. If passed and signed into law, the bill would require TRICARE to cover chiropractic services for all service members, active and retired, and non-activated reservists.

Their website announces that “NGAUS is pleased to support this legislation addressing chiropractic health care services as part of the TRICARE program,” said retired Brig. Gen. J. Roy Robinson, the association president. “NGAUS continues to advocate to close the current gaps in health care coverage for our National Guard service members. NGAUS believes this legislation is an important step in affording our reserve-component service men and women the ability to access the types of healthcare their active duty counterparts receive.”

An interesting addition to the article is the note that “expanding the coverage is part of the senator’s efforts to address the ongoing opioid epidemic by providing access to alternative treatments for chronic pain.” As Baldwin is quoted in the article stating that she has “heard from Wisconsin veterans who are in desperate need of chiropractic health services so they can access non-opioid pain management care and live healthier lives. My bipartisan legislation with Senator Moran would make sure these individuals can get the health care benefits they’ve earned and deserve.”

Moran said current limits to TRICARE leaves many retirees and Reservists at a disadvantage. “Many of the brave men and women who serve our country have sustained back and other neuromusculoskeletal injuries that can be treated through chiropractic care,” he said. “This bill will increase access to chiropractic care by expanding TRICARE coverage for military retirees and all reservists, which is something I’ve advocated to the VA many times over. The men and women of our Armed Forces, past and present, deserve access to the same care they received while on active duty to prevent a lapse in care.”

As the article points out the legislation is also supported by the American Chiropractic Association, Armed Forces Retirees Association, the National Military and Veterans Alliance and Veterans for Common Sense, among others.

To learn more follow the link below to the original article;

https://www.ngaus.org/about-ngaus/newsroom/chiropractic-bill-would-support-guard

And, as always, for any questions or to schedule an appointment at our Mount Pleasant chiropractic office please call Mount Pleasant Spine Center at 843-416-8012.

All of the team at Mount Pleasant Spine Center would like to wish you and your loved ones a happy and healthy Holiday Season!

We are very thankful for our wonderful community of patients and friends and hope you all enjoy this extra time with your families.

We will be out of the office Monday December 24^th-Wednesday December 26^th. We will be back in the office Thursday December 27^th.

Happy Holidays!

The entire team at Mount Pleasant Spine Center would like to wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

We will be closed for the holiday Thursday November 22nd and Friday November 23rd. For emergency appointments please call 843-991-6038.

There are numerous benefits to exercise, which is why chiropractors have always been strong advocates for supporting an active lifestyle for our patients.  Below are some excerpts from a recent study summarizing the evidence specific to cognitive benefits of exercise for individuals over 50. The results are promising for both aerobic and resistance training, reminding us how important it is to incorporate patient preference into any exercise prescription. As we all know, the best exercise is the type that we will actually do- and enjoy!

The study “Exercise interventions for cognitive function in adults older than 50: a systematic review with meta-analysis” written by Northey JM, Cherbuin N, Pumpa KL, et al. was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine 2018. The study states that “as any population ages, cognitive decline becomes more of an issue. Maintaining a physically active lifestyle has been shown to help reduce age-related cognitive declines and incidence of dementia. The most accepted hypothesis to explain this relationship postulates that neural and vascular adaptation to physical exercise promotes neurogenesis, angiogenesis, synaptic plasticity, decreased proinflammatory processes, and reduced cellular damage due to oxidative stress, all leading to improved cognitive function.” This study demonstrates what we have long discussed and advocated for with our patients- not only does both aerobic and resistance training help increase our cardiovascular health, increase and maintain bone density, aid in weight management, provide us with endorphins (our “happy” hormones) and decrease stress but, as this study shows, aids in improving our cognitive health.

There is a fairly large pool of evidence backing this conclusion, “thirty-nine studies were included in the quantitative analysis. All modes of exercise (except yoga) produced significant positive effects on cognitive function. Studies with a medium duration of exercise (45-60 minutes) showed positive effects, while short- and long-duration exercise did not show statistically significant results. Moderate and vigorous exercise intensity had similar positive effect sizes, while low-intensity exercise did not show statistically significant results.”

The study further states that “exercise in general showed statistically significant effects on all domains except for global cognition. Resistance training showed significant effects on executive function, memory and working memory and tai chi showed significant effects on working memory. Both aerobic and resistance training were shown to have similar effect sizes.”

So what exactly does all this mean? This study is great evidence for the positive effects that exercise has on our overall brain health. Increasing, and maintaining, cognitive function and overall brain health as we age is extremely important and it is great to know that exercise is one way in which we can help this process. We’ve always known that there are huge health benefits from exercising and maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle but it is great to have a study to demonstrate the benefits to our brain that exercise provides!

For any questions, or to make an appointment at our Mount Pleasant Chiropractic office, call us at 843-416-8012.